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U.S. diesel is more "dirty" than the diesel in other countries, so VM Motori had to retune the electronic controls and update the engines they had already manufactured.
(they had a storage area full of engines waiting for the update)

- The new assembly line 4, that started production around july, have been stopped for some time waiting for assembly line approval by Chrysler (600 engines were already manufactured before stop of production)

Another article explains that it had to do with the Cetane levels in the USA not being consistant. Cummins and others work with our fuel so not sure why they had trouble other than their test labs are in Europe. They apparently found the problem during testing here countrywide.

I'm sure there was some issue but not catching something so major and obvious as fuel differences seems unlikely. That's almost as big as 50/60hz between the US and well.... most everywhere else. At least I hope not, otherwise, I'm going to lose some serious faith in their engineering department(s). I'm thinking they've had a few glitches in the first pre-production batch that they ran back in September for QA purposes (the same ones making the car magazine circuit), and they're trying to make sure they've got these and any other as yet undiscovered glitches out of the system before they release them onto the general forum-happy public to avoid such popular title posts as "my-RAM-ED-is-DOA".

Sorta like the Mars rover not knowing the difference between English and Metric.... now THAT was an expensive goof.

There are several legitimate articles out there on the reason for the delay. It seems that when VM did the calibrations for the engine, they did not take into account the lower quality of diesel fuel in the USA which then caused emissions problems. By lower quality, the Cetane levels here vary greatly across the country unlike in Europe where it has to meet a tighter standard. The issue then caused the need to recalibrate to meet emission standards which put the assembly line on hold until a solution was approved by Chrysler. It has since restarted but the GC is first in line to receive the engines.

There are Jeep GC diesels built but none have shipped to dealers in the USA yet. The current status updates are showing some to arrive at the end of the month but that has been pushed back several times already.

The USA has higher diesel emission standards than in Europe but the fuel quality/consistancy/cetane level is much poorer.

Still can't divulge the precise info but it is related to emissions but not exactly this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvertoy

I'm sure there was some issue but not catching something so major and obvious as fuel differences seems unlikely. That's almost as big as 50/60hz between the US and well.... most everywhere else. At least I hope not, otherwise, I'm going to lose some serious faith in their engineering department(s). I'm thinking they've had a few glitches in the first pre-production batch that they ran back in September for QA purposes (the same ones making the car magazine circuit), and they're trying to make sure they've got these and any other as yet undiscovered glitches out of the system before they release them onto the general forum-happy public to avoid such popular title posts as "my-RAM-ED-is-DOA".

The quality control of the US diesel fuel can be at best described as "shotgun". The TDI forums are all over this as that caused a lot of issues with their HPFP (and $8000 repair bills).

Quote:

Originally Posted by skytop

Was at my Ram dealer yesterday for service. GM stated they are expecting the first Grand Cherokee diesels to arrive the beginning of next week.

He was right. Guess what started shipping today? As the folks on the Jeep forums calls it: The Skittle Farting Unicorn has shipped.